


Her little Parasol to lift

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Angst, Conversations, Espionage, F/M, Flirting, Friendship, Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 17:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8169488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Who watches the watchers?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tvsn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvsn/gifts).



“I don’t like it,” Mary remarked. 

Jed had come to stand beside her but he thought she would have said the same thing even if she’d been alone. Something was troubling her, offending her really, he hadn’t heard her Manchester accent so strong in weeks and what could account for the return of the prim Baroness von Olnhausen, dispatched direct from Miss Dix? He glanced at her and saw how she’d squared her shoulders and lifted her chin; he knew the posture was meant to convey her moral outrage but he couldn’t help appreciating how it revealed the smooth curve of her throat, accentuated the loveliness of her figure, the poor calico of her bodice taut against her full breasts, her slender waist. There was something almost cold about her now, however, a careful, appraising gaze so at odds with the warmly spirited Mary he was familiar with. He turned his eyes from her and tried to look where she did rather than ask what she meant.

Miss Alice Green and Mlle. Lisette Beaufort stood in the entry of Mansion House, both dressed as if for an afternoon tea, all floating voile flounces and long silk sashes, Alice’s the cherry-red favored by the Confederates, Mademoiselle Beaufort’s a rich blue. Each had a little lace trimmed parasol guarding her purposelessly against the midday sun in the shady hall and he saw that while the Frenchwoman, as he recalled from their previous…encounters in Paris, was quite skilled at casting shadows that added to her allure, Alice Green was far more willing to fiddle with the ivory-handled stick, twirling it as a counterpoint to her coyly, fluttering lashes and the arch, teasing pose she affected. The objects of the women’s attention were a trio of stalwart Union officers, two wounded but not all that badly, in slings and barely bloodied bandages, rakish rather than pitiful, the third perhaps charged with the delivery or retrieval of his comrades. Jed felt fairly sure that none of the men could easily recall what their mission had been and even to report their name, rank and regiment might have been beyond them, especially once Alice giggled and shook her shining yellow curls and Lisette laid a hand on the uninjured uniformed arm closest to her. They seemed like giddy, silly girls, unrepentant minxes his mother might have said and in need of a firm talking to, but Jed couldn’t see what bothered Mary so deeply. 

“I hardly think a little innocent flirtation will permanently sully the good name of Mansion House, Mary. If we even have one,” he said, jocular in hopes that it would soothe her. 

“Honestly, Jed!” He had not succeeded it seemed, her tone sharp and she didn’t even spare him a glance.

“They’re just acting like all the young girls do. Perhaps things are more formal and decorous in Boston, but it wouldn’t be thought much of in proper Southern circles,” he offered, matter-of-fact this time, mentally eliding the fact that Lisette Beaufort was a woman grown, old enough to be a wife or a widow and yet remained unmarried.

“Did you never leave Harvard’s lecture-halls when you were there? Yankee society is not so different, people are not so different as you have been so quick, so eager to tell me. I can’t think what you imagine of my past, that I was a…a cloistered nun or that we’re all as dry as the blasted Shakers. I’m well aware of what it looks like when a young girl is trying to tease and flirt, I’ve been that girl, though it seems you can’t countenance it. That,” she said, inclining her head towards Alice and Lisette when he sensed she truly wanted to point an accusatory finger, “is not simply harmless coquetry. But I’m not sure what to do about it.”

He pushed away the image that wanted to be foremost, a younger Mary in a bright striped silk dress, a pair of gold bracelets at her wrists, a cluster of rosebuds pinned to her waist, smiling, happy and excited to be at a ball, her slippered foot tapping as the musicians played. There would be another time to consider that earlier incarnation, who might have answered to Polly or Mamie, whom he might have held in his arms in a waltz; the Head Nurse stood beside him and having scolded him a little, was now sharing her true concern, one he ought to understand better, as the Executive Officer and her friend, if that was what he wished to be.

“I beg your pardon, Mary. I was too glib. What do you make of it then, Miss Green and Mlle. Beaufort? It is not like you to be so uneasy,” he tried.

“Mlle. Beaufort likes to be an enigma but I suspect there may not be much behind all her mysterious airs, only someone readily taken in. She seems very eager to be complimented, see how she smiled just now at that officer and then how she waits?” It was just as she said and Lisette gave the man a smile Jed was familiar with, feline if you knew to look at the way her pretty pout curled. Mary paused, then went on, “But Miss Green…there is something wrong, her eyes, they’re... When she thinks no one is looking, her expression changes, she isn’t subtle at all, her contempt is evident. She doesn’t look like a sixteen year old girl, there’s something hard about her and I wonder, why is she here? Why would her parents let her come here to work with her sister when she does so little, shirks every task—what must she tell them? And when she is around the boys, oh, what sighs and glances! What does she mean to gain from all these come-hither looks?”

“It sounds to me as if you do have an idea, an answer to your question. Why won’t you say it?” Jed asked. He didn’t doubt her assessment, not a whit. Mary had her faults, as everyone did, but she was rarely too far off when it came to understanding her nursing staff, from gregarious Sister Mary Isabella to the gorgon Hastings. Alice would fall within her purview. He wondered about what she thought and why she needed his assistance to say it.

“What shall I say? That I suspect a sixteen year old girl of being a Rebel spy because she flirts too much with Union soldiers? That she must be up to no good because I have seen her look upon sick boys with disgust and not pity? How shall I sound then—the Yankee nurse convinced a kindly neighbor means to exploit dying boys? I know how it will seem, that I am provincial and sour, a dried up, puritanical widow who sees iniquity everywhere, making accusations against a Confederate nurse without any justification other than my own spiteful ill-will.”

She sounded tired and frustrated, worried, and it took effort for him not to simply declare, “No, Mary, no one would think that, no one could,” and take her hand in his to squeeze; he knew she would only pull away and the look she would give him would be worse than being cut. She was right—she had nothing substantial to report, only an intuition and a series of moments than suggested one explanation, but could well have another, could easily be explained away. But she was wrong—that anyone could look at her, talk to her and think her sour or dried up, spiteful or provincial, with her grace and her dark eyes, her neat figure and her boundless enthusiasms, her persistence and kindness and lively wit, her sweet red mouth and her soft, slow smile when she was truly pleased. She was no Puritan though she had a pilgrim soul indeed and although her eyes were brown, they always made him think of the ocean somehow.

“Have you spoken to Miss Green? Miss Emma Green, that is? About your… concerns?”

“And what could I say? Oh, Miss Green, I suspect your sister is engaged in espionage, treason really, won’t you tell me the truth? God help me, would she ever speak to me again, once I made an allegation like that? And for what-- she couldn’t tell me anything, could she? Against her own sister, if I am right? And if I am not, how deeply will I have alienated her, I will have thrown away our…friendship, such as it is, and for nothing,” Mary exclaimed. 

Her voice had grown quieter, lonely and bereft. There was not much for her at Mansion House besides her work, the scant appreciation of selfish, sick boys, a Dixie nurse who had just begun to trust her, a chaplain who looked up to her as an elder sister, a freeman who could never show he recognized her care. And a man who wished to say things to her that were unspeakable, who was breaking his heart over her, who’d once treated her worse than a serving girl at a tavern.

“I have not so many friends here that I would risk losing one, sacrificing the connection without anything to be gained,” she said and her candor was painful, the remark unadorned and unqualified. 

Could he ever tell her what it cost him not to pull her close then, to hold her and call her his dearest love in the breath before he kissed her soundly and then without any restraint? To have the taste of her in his mouth and her cry caught by his lips! He couldn’t imagine he would and it was a second loss, to give up the fantasy and its confession. He swallowed, made a fist of one hand then released it, seeking to return himself to the actuality, where they stood across a crowded ward and watched a shallow girl preening or a sly infiltrator coaxing secrets from men blinded by a smile, the shower of gold when the sunlight was on her curls like Danaë’s shower of gold. He owed Mary help, not only his mute longing, and he owed his position due respect as well.

“‘One must therefore be a fox to recognize snares,’ I propose. Had you heard that before?” Jed said, prepared for either response. She widened her eyes and he thought it was new to her and that she would consider it, because it had merit and because he had said it. He was not sure which played the greater role but the flattery of it made him bold enough to speak before she could.

“Or in your case, Mary, a vixen. And Miss Alice, or rather her secrets, if there are any, your prey. It will make a change from bandaging and letter-writing,” he said. She gave him a searching look then, as if she saw into the heart of him, and he thought Miss Green could not stand a chance against Mary’s fierceness, that unerring sense she had of what ought to be, what was falsehood.

“I shall, that is, I should be very glad of your…shall we say, assistance? Another set of eyes, someone who is not altogether taken in by her sweet face and dimples, who will not rush to judgment but may still harbor a suspicion—and if she proves an imminent risk, you may act as I may not, the Executive Officer empowered as a Head Nurse, a woman, can never be,” Mary replied. 

What a change she implied from their earlier connection, when he had rushed to judgment of an attractive woman in a blue traveling coat and then a stern Yankee Abolitionist because he had been taken in, unwitting and unwilling but felled by her artless appeal, and then how she reminded him of what they were to each other now. 

“I am your humble servant, then, madam,” he said, as close to sincere earnestness as he could manage. She laughed, not the light, delighted sound she must have made as young girl, but something rich and altogether lovely, appreciative and subtle and tinged with sorrow, a women’s laugh, a wife’s.

“Oh, you’re never that, Jedediah. Neither humble, nor any man’s servant.”

“But perhaps a woman’s?” he offered, hoping she would agree with all his heart, which had been broken and mended by her and would be again and again as long as he could see her without speaking, speak to her without looking, walk up to her and not take her hand, her arm, her waist, call her Mary but not my darling, not beloved, not Mrs. Foster while she opened sleepy eyes and drew him back to her with a palm laid against his cheek, wordless and understood.

“I don’t need a servant, I don’t want one. A partner, though, well, that might be just what the doctor ordered, no?” What a look she gave with the remark, droll and admonishing and underneath all, so vulnerable and brave.

“I shouldn’t like to speak for the other surgeons at this place, Summers might just suggest a dram and Hale would snatch the drink from your hand before you could taste it, but for myself, yes. I think a partnership has its merits—and you must believe I will not think you are fabricating anything or exaggerating if you come to me with…evidence. But I don’t think we will observe anything else of note just now, do you? I did want to discuss Baker’s progress at the bedside and I don’t think either little miss will be too quick to do or say much more if we’re four feet away.” 

Mary shook her head and started walking to Private Baker’s bed; Jed easily matched her gait. It had not been purely a pretext, his request, and soon enough they were engrossed in discussion of the surgical repair, Jed’s latest theory and his questions about her assessment of the New Yorker’s vital signs and constitution. Neither noticed that Alice and Lisette had bid farewell to the officers and had turned their mutual scrutiny to the couple.

“ _Oh, Monsieur le Docteur, il est si charmant, je me souviens_ …You must be careful with him, _chère_ Alice,” Lisette murmured, a warning mixed with her memory, her accent disguising both unless one was ready to listen more closely. That had been the first instruction the Knights had given Alice, simply to listen, and she found she was quite good at it.

“I don’t know, I think she’s the threat, even if he is the mark and the Executive Officer. Men are so eager to believe what they have decided to be true, why, my father and brother…And even my poor Tom! It’s fine Miss Mary I’m worried about and Emma’s no help at all,” Alice replied.

“Well, perhaps you need not worry about either of them, it seems they have eyes only for each other,” Lisette commented. 

She remembered when she had been given Jed Foster’s regard, when she had been just a fresh young girl in Paris, and how very pleasant it had been. She had been very forward with the American and had gambled wisely, for he was tender and generous, had even written her a farewell billet-doux she would have saved if she were sentimental. He was older now but so much must remain unchanged and though his confidence had bordered on arrogance more than once, he had been the talk of the salons and not only for the size of his pocketbook and how profligate he could be, those hands so skilled in so many ways and a wit to match...

“My Cause is just and my heart is true, so I’ll have to rely on that…and make sure that Miss Hastings regularly hears how Nurse Mary feels she has failed. That ought to create enough distraction,” Alice announced. 

Lisette wondered how successful she could be—Alice grasped some things quite well, more deeply that anyone would suspect, and in other respects, she was blind if not dumb. But she was entertaining and she was not miserly with the coin the Knights had given her and it made a change, her little plans and machinations. When those things were no longer true, Mlle. Lisette Beaufort would gently withdraw her support from Alice’s endeavors and if need be, her presence from Mansion House and Virginia. But for now, Alexandria and its intrigues suited her very well, even if that was not the case with everyone; Lisette was experienced enough to read what Jed Foster meant when he looked at her, and Miss Alice, and most especially, that Baroness and she still thought Alice underestimated him but that was the younger woman’s trouble, or would be soon enough.

**Author's Note:**

> So, anticipating Season 2, here goes nothing. I've got Alice in cahoots (perhaps one-way cahoots) with Lisette Beaufort, whom I speculate was a courtesan Jed had a relationship with in Paris about 8 years prior to the War. Mary is suspicious and with good reasons but has nothing to denounce Alice with and she and Jed are both sort of angstily swooning about the other. Off-screen, Anne Hastings continues to rail at Mary. If you'd like to look for young Mary (I vote Polly!)'s ballgown, Pinterest has loads of options. Hairdos in the late 1850s were sort of like inflated wings and not very much fun to describe, but plenty fun to look at (see also, Pinterest). When Jed says, ‘One must therefore be a fox to recognize snares,’ he is quoting Machiavelli, which seemed apt for a story with subterfuge and spying.
> 
> The title is from my best girl, Emily Dickinson.


End file.
